Worldwide, the social protection programs have become a key tool for policymakers. These programs are executed to achieve multiple objectives such as fighting poverty and hunger, and increasing the resilience of the poor and vulnerable groups towards various shocks. Recently, with the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries started to implement social protection programs to eliminate the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and enhance community resilience. This study aims to explore the current implementation of social protection programs during the COVID-19 pandemic in the most affected countries as well as to provide learned lessons from countries that had not previously considered implementing social protection programs up until the COVID-19 crisis. This review was carried out by searching through WOS, Google Scholar, ILO, World Bank reports, and Aljazeera Television. The search was conducted over literature and systematic reviews on the implementation of social protection programs during previous pandemic crises and especially in the current COVID-19 pandemic. The findings revealed that social protection programs become a flexible and strategic tool to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the study highlighted a lack of comprehensive strategy amongst the countries in executing the social protection programs to respond to COVID-19. Finally, the study concluded with some learned lessons and implications for the practitioners and policymakers in managing future pandemics.

This article aims to explore the role of heritage impact assessment (HIA) as a tool to safeguard world heritage sites from the adverse impacts of proposed projects as well as to recommend effective mitigation measures to create the balance between preservation and development. These mitigations will help the decision makers to take the right decision concerning the potential development. The methodology adopts a qualitative approach which is based on semi-structured interviews with site managers of two world heritage sites: historic areas of Istanbul in Turkey and the Giza pyramids in Egypt. Other interviews were conducted with some archaeologists and some governmental bodies in both countries to evaluate the level of awareness of HIA and assess the current and potential threats resulting from development proposals. Consequently, the article applies the HIA methodology to evaluate the potential impacts of proposed projects in both heritage sites. HIA can be an effective solution in order to eliminate the contradictions between the stakeholders investing in world heritage sites. The findings revealed that both world heritage sites are threatened by infrastructure and development projects. There is a lack of professionals who are able to conduct HIA methodology, thus Turkey and Egypt depend mainly on foreign experts to conduct it.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the economic sector, and tourism has been one of the hardest hit industries. This is due to the numerous imposed restrictions to curb down the spreading of the pandemic and reduce the mobility. In this context, the "staycation" as an emerging form of domestic tourism becomes a booming trend in the tourism and leisure industry. This alternative mode of travel could promote affordable domestic vacations. Hence, this study aims to explore the growing trend of staycation in Egypt aftermath COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, it seeks to investigate the differences in behavioral characteristics, and preferences of Egyptian staycationers post COVID-19 pandemic based on their socio-demographic characteristics. Primary data were collected through an online survey from 208 participants and Chi-Square test was conducted to examine the relationship between the socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents and preferences for staycation. The findings of the study showed that amongst all socio demographic characteristics, gender and age of the respondents were significantly associated with most travel preferences while education and profession were associated with only a few staycation preferences aftermath the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the findings of the study 943 ‫والفهادق‬ ‫السياحة‬ ‫كلية‬ ‫جملة‬ -‫عدد‬ 13 -‫يونيو‬ 9093 ‫م‬ could guide Egyptian tourism authorities in designing proper marketing strategies to increase Egyptian staycationers" satisfaction. The study ends up with some useful implications for Egyptian tourism stakeholders, including local tour operators, travel agencies, hotels, marketers, and authorities to develop new business models for target market segments.